The Retirement Newsletter: My retirement — an external review?

Issue Number: 189 (42) — it’s all the planning?

Photo by Author — Sometimes, in retirement, you need to stop and admire the view

Welcome

Welcome to issue 189 (42).

The working title for this issue was “Dealing with old habits.” I planned to write about how, 42 weeks into my retirement, I am still clinging to old habits I formed during my working years and how I need to break them and move on.

The plan was to write about habits such as:

• Shaving daily
• Grocery shopping at the weekend
• Checking petrol in the car on Sunday to see if there was enough for the week of commuting ahead
• Checking the weather forecast for the working week for possible disruptions in my commute
• Looking at my diary multiple times a day to see when I had my next meeting
• Checking email every five minutes

However, as I sat here writing, I realised that the old habits weren’t the problem but possibly a symptom, a sign that I had not fully embraced my retirement. I needed an overview of my retirement — a 360-degree review and a spot of horizon scanning. (Ah, the old ‘business speak’ from my workdays.)

Doing the three-sixty (360)